Today’s job seekers may not be in a position to make the same demands of yesteryear, but CML Recruitment’s Ben Cooper says that there are significant stakes on offer for lawyers in Asia with the right skill sets. Are you in demand?
 It seems like only yesterday that we lived in a world of salary freezes, recruitment freezes and redundancies. In the legal world, junior associates were putting as much effort as possible into looking busy, lest a partner notice that they had suddenly become an unnecessary drain on PEP, whilst partners were scrambling for what little business remained in the market. Meanwhile, in house counsel, especially those in the financial services sector, became acutely aware that they might be perceived as a cost and not a revenue generation centre. At one point the legal world shared the fear expressed by US leaders that the world economy was going to grind to a halt, and sadly for some lawyers the turbulent economic environment brought redundancies, whilst last year also saw a number of legal recruitment firms lose a large proportion of their staff due to weakening demand. The only areas showing any signs of hiring were litigation, restructuring and insolvency, which are hardly the bastions of in-house counsel, and many firms were opting to retrain lawyers in these specialisms rather than hire externally. The road to recovery Banking & Finance A number of banks are moving towards highly structured products and need high quality legal support at the early stages of structuring. These products are still very profitable and attractive to investors unafraid to take a risk, yet are now more regulated than ever before, meaning that it is vital the originators are not leaving themselves open to investigations from organisations such as Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC). Consequently, lawyers with suitable skill sets are currently in very high demand, even more so as there is a shortage of talent in the Asian market. Although a number of these hires are replacements for casualties of the recent financial crisis, we are being increasingly instructed on roles to grow the structured products and derivatives teams for both equity and fixed income, due not only to the continued recovery of Asian capital markets but also in preparation for the continued growth of Hong Kong as a global financial hub, as banks perhaps outgrow the traditional centres of New York and London in the not too distant future. The large number of clients each bank is in the process of onboarding is evidence of this growth, and this has led to a huge demand for International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) negotiators. Post Lehman, tighter compliance requirements have meant that trades are not going ahead until Master agreements are firmly in place. The dearth of suitably experienced professionals in this area in the region means that banks are having to look further afield whilst also considering the option of training keen junior lawyers into this specialist area, and salaries for ISDA negotiators are now at times on a par or even, in some extreme cases, above those for legal counsel. Compliance specialists are also experiencing a greater demand for their skills due to a combination of stricter regulations and an ever more cautious approach to transactions. The more difficult roles to fill are product-specific, front office support positions that require specialist knowledge, and although such roles traditionally require local tenure, experience of derivatives and structured products is highly prized and many banks are having to look to London and New York for suitable candidates. To attract the right kind of talent, many compliance professionals are also being offered packages on a par to legal counsel. Interestingly, the investment banking divisions of the banks are not hiring in tandem with the M&A and ECM teams of private practice. When they do hire, the focus is on very specialist skills, again usually requiring Chinese languages, and the roles are still generally oversubscribed with very strong candidates. On the whole, we are not seeing a huge rise in recruitment to in-house legal teams across the board – each role is very specific to a projected area of development. Even where there is a clear need and justified hiring request, many General Counsel and Heads of Legal are finding it hard to get headcount granted, with even the most junior roles often requiring authorisation from senior management within global head offices. But what about the areas other than banking? Smaller investment firms, private equity houses and hedge funds are always keen to remain as streamlined as possible and have the luxury of claiming private practice fees against each deal, and so rarely hire heavily in the legal space. Perceived volatility in the market, for example the recent issues in Greece and Thailand, tend to have a more pronounced effect on the value of such funds and so they are rightly more cautious. When the roles do become available, however, they are some of more attractive and interesting in the industry due to their high level of commercial involvement and visibility across the business. Because of the nature of such roles, employers will usually want to see evidence of commercial acumen, either gained in-house or perhaps through an MBA or previous career. Language skills are very advantageous and indeed, essential, for many Private Equity houses, especially those with a focus on foreign direct investment into China. 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